Colorful Puppetry

I. Long History: From the Beginning

1. Long Past Years

(B) Yangzhou: Hometown of Puppets

　　The historical and cultural city Yangzhou is located on the north of the Yangtze River, beside the ancient Beijing-Hangzhou Canal. It has enjoyed 25 centuries of solid historical accumulation.This place has gathered lots of authors, poets and merchants with its beautiful scenes, mild climate, rich products and nice music. It also nurtured and developed cultural heritage.“The vault of heaven can be divided into three under moonlight, / But Yangzhou has occupied two of the sites.” These ancient poetic lines have expressed the description and respect for Yangzhou’s pleasant scenes.

　　Yangzhou’s unique land and culture have nurtured its puppet art, including stringed puppets, hand puppets, pole-end puppets, above-water puppets, etc. The pole-end puppets were especially outstanding and won a world renown after the thousand-year-long succession and development. The time-marked Yangzhou City has been reputed as Puppet Hometown in Jiangsu.

　　Yangzhou has been a holy ground for songs and music and dramas since ancient times. Ancient Chinese dramas and plays, their important milestones and basic forms can all be found in Yangzhou, which has traces like Hundred Dramas of the Han Dynasties, Songs and Dances of the Sui Dynasty, Dramas with the themes of joining the army and puppet dramas of the Tang Dynasty, musical dramas (“zaju” in Chinese) of the Song Dynasties, verse dramas (“chuanqi” in Chinese) of the Ming Dynasty, etc. Particularly worth mention is Heyday of Emperor Qianlong’s Reign, when actors and actresses gathered in Yangzhou, including the most famous Anhui Troupes (“Huiban”in Chinese). In 55th year in Qianlong’s Rein (1790 CE), Four Big Anhui Troupes started from Yangzhou to Peking (Beijing), with Sanqing Anhui Troupe as the forerunner of them all. Before they started to Peking, they had performed in Yangzhou for a long time, amplifying their artistic ability with the artistic power from Yangzhou. Historical records show that amongst the seventy-odd actors and actresses who went to Peking, 36 were Yangzhou residents originally (Adapted from Listening to New Odes to Spring or “Ting Chun Xin Yong” in Chinese, which was written in 15th year in Emperor Jiaqing Reign, or 1811 CE).For instance, Gao Langting, the Head ofSanqing Anhui Troupe, and Tiedan Wanlingguan, the actor of Wuqing Anhui Troupe, etc. were residents of Yangzhou. Therefore, Yangzhou Puppet Art had its holy ground and development space in Yangzhou, and its impulses were in same rhythm as other art in the city. It is an inseparable element of Yangzhou art.

　　In the 3rd year of Emperor Jiaqing’s reign (1798 CE), the Qing Court announced a Imperial Edict to ban the performance of local dramas. The Imperial Edict declared: “Yangzhou has tradition of Kunju tunes, but recent development has abandoned the tradition and taken up something novel, like odd and disorderly twang of chords. This abandonment of Kunju tradition has declined more with each passing day. It is high time to ban this abandonment. From today on, only Kunju and Geju tunes are allowed to stages, but others like disorderly twangs, Bangzi Opera, Xiansuo Opera, Qinqiang Folk Tunes, etc, are totally banned from performance.” Soon after, Yangzhou’s urban economy declined sharply because of the reforms in the salt control system and the change of route in the transportation of grain to the capital. Therefore, all troupes in Yangzhou, including the Anhui Troupes, had scatter to the east and west of Lixiahe River Reaches.In East Lixiahe Area, they performed in Nantong, Rugao, Dongtai, Haian, Taixian, Taixing, etc; In West Lixiahe Area, they perfromed in places like Xinghua and Gaoyou，etc. Such art grew their roots in the folks and was welcome by the broad masses. Naturally the art had some development. At this time, the old Anhui tunes of Huiju (Anhui Opera) was influenced by Pihuang Tunes of Beijing Opera and Huiju gradually changed to Peking Opera. At this period, Yangzhou Puppet Plays also changed their tunes of Kunqiang Opera and Bangzi Opera to Anhui Tunes, and later tuned themselves to Peking Opera. This also indicates puppet dramas (puppet plays) developed at the same pace as other forms of art. They shared the same developing blood veins and blood flows.

　　According to senior artists of puppetry in Taixing (1986), Xinghua (1986) and Gaoyou (2008), Yangzhou puppetry has a history of around 150 to 200 years. This has affinity with the scattering of Yangzhou opera troupes (including Anhui Troupes) around the areas of Taixing, Taixian, Xinghua and Gaoyou.

　　Yangzhou, holding an important position between the Yangtze River and the Huaihe River and also as an port city for high and large ocean-going ships, was the largest business city back in the Sui and Tang dynasties. It enjoyed the highest luxury in the whole country. Those rich merchants and high officials squandered large sums of money for songs and dances. “With a hundred thousand coins as pocket money, / a person went to Yangzhou on a crane bird.” Those were two lines of poetry to describe Yangzhou as a cave to melt away plutocrats’ gold. Therefore, Yangzhou became a city where puppet plays were the most popular. Puppetry troupes from all over the country gathered at neighborhoods, street corners, taverns and verandas to present their art. Liu Xu, a writer of the Tang Dynasty wrote in his Nice Stories of Liu Binke: “Prefect Du of Weiyang (Yangzhou), when in low position, once called guests behind the screen and said: When I take office, I will surely purchase a little chariot of four, worth eight to nine thousand silver coins. I will have them fed to the full. Dressed in a coarse and rough coat, I will ride one of the horses to the street to watch stringed-and-belled puppet shows. I will feel satisfied with this.” Du You wrote hisGeneral Law Codes: “Puppets were made in the forms of humans for dramas. They were expert for songs and dancing...Nowadays they are popular in the hustle-bustle areas of the city.” Du Yong had dwelt in Yangzhou for a long period and was princeps militiae (military chief) of Huainan (South of Huaihe River) for more than two decades. He excelled in the officialdom and had such great political achievements that he worked as Prime Minister for a certain period. He was also so excellent in the academic area that his work General Law Codes remains an important literature to study law codes of ancient dynasties.Though a celebrity and high official, Du You neglected his position by going to the neighborhood to watch puppet art. This shows to the reader that puppetry was very widely welcome in Yangzhou city. Wang Heng of the Ming Dynasty wrote his poetic drama True Puppets to relate the anecdote of Du You’s viewing stories performed with stringed and belled puppets.

　　In Yangzhou of the Song Dynasty, puppet dramas were one of the most ancient plays with their own features of that period. According to New Compilation of Song History (“Song Shi Xin Bian”), “When Emperor Lizong was reigning, playwright and musician Dong Songchen and Lu Yunsheng composed “Lotus Pavilion and Fragrant Orchid Pavilion” to accompany female dancers and puppets in the aristocratic court for the Emperor’s dinners in the open.” During Yuan and Ming dynasties, Yangzhou was troubled by military disasters and ethnic assaults, which rendered the city to be on the verge of debris and threw business into recession. And historical records of those dynasties hardly bore any note of puppetry.But later, during the heyday reigns of Emperors Kangxi and Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, puppetry became active with the prosperity of economy. Puppet plays in the name of “royal plays on grand stages” became a way of entertainment for feudal nobles and aristocrats in the aristocratic court and inner hall of noble houses. But the rise of grand troupes of Peking Opera marginalized and drove puppetry to beonly for folks of low positions. At that time Yangzhou puppetry was unprecedentedly flourishing, with the various forms like pole-end puppet plays, stringed puppet plays and hand-puppet plays.Zheng Banqiao, a poet of the Qing Dynasty composed “Ode to Puppets”, which was satirical of humans as just like puppets. But it also vividly depicted the art of puppetry. The poem mentioned stringed puppets like the following:

　　Thou art laughable with nothing in thy chest,

　　And thy body comes from decadent wood.

　　In a poet’s clothes thou art dressed,

　　Startle people thy demeanor would.

　　The ugliness of platform thou arrogantly knowst not,

　　Observers take not plays as real.

　　Though thy limbs can move a lot,

　　They don’t bend an’ stretch if strings didn’t reel an’ unreel.

　　At the end of Emperor Qianlong’s Reign (ca. 1796) of the Qing Dynasty, Li Dou, an author of Yizheng City, wrote Painted Boats of Yangzhou, in which he described pole-end puppetry of Yangzhou as follows: “Han Family Garden is on the long Dam. At leisure time, they open a tavern, where they often put on puppet shows. Those puppets, two chi tall (approximately 67 centimeters tall) , have their bottoms but have no feet. Their bottoms are flat, with mortise and tenon fitted from below. They are born with bamboo boards....”The same book also recorded activities of hand-puppet (also translated as “puppet theater”):“A man from Fengyang, after erecting a large cloth as a tent-house and putting up a piece of wood, maneuvered his three-cun-tall puppets (approximately eight-centimeter-tall puppet), accompanied by cymbals and drums. Actors’ words are also uttered. All is done by himself. So it is named shoulder-pole play (“biandan xi” in Chinese).

　　All the above-mentioned historical records have shown that puppet plays were seen in neighborhoods and on royal stages in Yangzhou back in the high Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty. Since puppetry did not need large stages and the portability of stage properties, puppet art would surely go beyond neighborhoods and aristocratic courts of Yangzhou City.Though history books have hardly borne any evidence of puppetry since the Yuan and the Ming dynasties, we still have other evidence of the growth of puppetry in county seats, townships and rural areas near Yangzhou city proper for over two centuries since Emperor Qianlong’s Reign of the Qing Dynasty.For instance, Yi Junzuo, an author in the Republic Period (1912-1949) wrote in his book Small Talks about Yangzhou: “Yangzhou has a kind of puppet plays,...They set up a cloth tent in a large space. The puppets, their stage and stage properties were all larger and grander than usual. Every viewer’s ticket price was eight copper coins. The play we watched was Pinggui Returning to His Cave-House, in which Third Sister of the Wang Family was naive and angry. It was really great fun!” This piece of writing can show some developing traces of puppet show in Yangzhou.

　　From Emperor Qianlong’s Reign to Emperor Jiaqing’s Reign in the Qing Dynasty, the newly risen Huiju (Anhui Opera) came to Yangzhou through the adjacent Tongcheng, Chuxian and Tianchang. Such novel art as Huiju attracted the attention of giant merchants in Yangzhou. They either tried to invite these bands to their homes or raised such bands in their homes. At that time, Huiju was very popular in Yangzhou.The Imperial Edict that was declared in the third year of Emperor Jiaqing’s Reign heaped especially much hardship on puppetry so that it had to transfer from Yangzhou City to its adjacent county towns and townships as well as rural places. Han Rihua who was writing during Emperor Daoguang’s Reign composed in his poem “To Painted Boat of Yangzhou” like this: “Green bamboo cabins provide a long lane in shade, / Where people watched puppetry and bought goods that were displayed.” This was the depiction of puppetry performance by puppet bands during rural fairs. During that epoch, Yangzhou’s vicinity such as Xinghua, Gaoyou, Taizhou, Taixing, Jingjiang, Rugao and townships witnessed better prosperity and larger frequencies of puppetry activities. And the distribution of puppetry also varies according to puppetry types and local conditions. In Lixiahe River areas like Xinghua and Gaoyou, rivers and intersecting and villages are either on islands or islets. All transportation depended on boats. Stringed puppets, hand puppets (literally“cloth-bag puppets”) and shoulder-poled puppetry (literally“pole-held puppets”) were small in size and needed only small stages. The whole band could live on one boat or several boats. So such art was suitable for those places. Taixing, Taizhou, Jingjiang and Rugao, etc. have large landmasses with fewer rivers and fords. Pole-end puppets were larger in size (each puppet needed one person and one pole to hold the puppet at its end, and two staves to operate the puppet’s hands) and needed larger stages. So this type of puppets are suitable for those places. The years and months drew a natural distinction line between these types of art. Stringed puppets (puppets held and maneuvered with strings) and hand puppets were transported and transferred by artists with shoulder poles. They swarmed in Xinghua and Gaoyou areas. They were also often active in the many places of Lixiahe River area like Jianhu, Dongtai, Sheyang, Gaoyou, Taixian, etc. But pole-end puppet artists were mostly found in local areas of Taixing, Taixian. They were also often active in the many places of Jingjiang, Rugao, Nantong, Hai’an, Yangzhong county seats and towns as well as villages. Since stringed puppets, hand puppets and pole-end puppets could enjoy their own places for survival and development, their roots got deep in these places.